At a celebratory drinking party, a group of prominent Athenians take turns delivering eulogies to the god of Love. The speeches range from the medical and pedantic to the comic and sublime, culminating in Socrates' revelation of the ladder of love that leads to the absolute Form of Beauty. The sudden entrance of a drunken Alcibiades adds a layer of raw human emotion and political subtext to the philosophical proceedings. It is perhaps Plato’s most literary and artistically perfect dialogue, blending humor, romance, and metaphysics.